


To Kingdom Come

by lwbones123



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, I think this is post-festival, Kinda depressing woops, Tommy tries to stop him, Wilbur is losing it, Wilbur wants to blow up Manburg, ambiguous ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27105784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lwbones123/pseuds/lwbones123
Summary: Wilbur wants to blow up Manburg, Tommy tries to convince him not to.
Relationships: Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 1
Kudos: 48





	To Kingdom Come

**Author's Note:**

> Uhhh, like the tags say, I think this would fit in post-festival, when Tommy and Quackity find Wilbur's bunker thing, but I think it can also be read as an isolated event. Also, this is my first ever fanfic, so I hope everything sounds in character. I don't know what else to say, so please enjoy!
> 
> Follow my tumblr if you'd like: lwbones

The room is dark, the torch he placed on the wall tossing shadows across the rocky cavern. The light catches the edges of words, promises carved into the stone. Sweet nothings, vows of freedom that never came to be. The lyrics of a song Wilbur remembers well. He can hear the tune as clearly as if it were being sung in his ear, as if the phantoms that haunted his dreams were whispering it to him.

_ I heard there was a special place.  _

He can see the walls, the glorious walls, built with his own hands.

_ Where men could go and emancipate, the brutality and tyranny of their rulers. _

Remember when the sun used to shine, glint off of the rooftops, reflect in the lake, on the faces of his friends? Remember when he was warm?

_ This place is real, you need not fret, with Wilbur, Tommy, Tubbo, fuck Eret… _

The words sting, the names cause a burning in his chest, somewhere close to where his heart should be. He sees them, brothers and friends, his son and his one love, he sees them as they were, in the sun. Warm.

_ It’s a very big and not blown up L’manburg… _

A laugh crawls up his throat as his eyes follow the words he doesn’t remember writing into these walls. It dies on his lips, a choked sound escaping instead. His vision has blurred, but it doesn’t matter. He knows the rest.

“ _ My  _ L’manburg,” he whispers, closes his eyes. 

_ My L’manburg.  _

“Wilbur!”

The voice echoes through the cavern, seems to shake the stone walls, the ground beneath his feet. Or maybe it is just him. He has not stopped trembling since the day they were exiled, thrown out of the very country he had created.

He turns, faces the boy he already knows the voice belongs to. 

“Wilbur, what are you doing?” Tommy asks, hesitance in his voice, written all over his face. Uncertainty in the way he holds himself, as if holding back, forcing himself not to reach out. 

Tommy is a force of nature, a storm of passion and emotion, but now his shoulders are slumped, his eyes rimmed red, shadows pulling at the bags underneath them. Defeated. It is a strange word to describe Tommy with. 

“What is this place?” Tommy asks, and Wilbur can’t help but laugh in his face, a bitter sound.

“What do you think it is, Tommy?” he responds, gesturing around him. TNT lines the walls. A detonator lies in his pocket. “I’m going to end this, like I said I would.”

Tommy’s face has paled, his jaw clenched. Wilbur knows that look. 

“Wilbur, you’re not going to do anything. Not today.”

Now, he laughs, really laughs, shrill and cutting. 

“How many times do I have to remind you, Tommy?” he asks as the giggles that shook his body die away. “You were never in charge,” his voice lowers, danger lining its edges. “And you never will be.”

“This isn’t about that, Wilbur,” Tommy says. “I would follow you anywhere.”

“Then follow me here,” Wilbur says, stepping forward, moving to place a hand on Tommy’s shoulder. The boy flinches. Wilbur pulls his hand away, ignores the pang in his chest at the fear in the kid’s eyes. 

“I can’t,” Tommy whispers, backing away. “This isn’t right.  _ You  _ aren’t right, man. You haven’t been, for a long time.”

There is winter in his veins. Doesn’t the boy in front of him see that? The freeze set in in the caves of Pogtopia, the cold seeping through the walls and into his skin. How could he ever be right again?

“It will all end, Tommy. Everything. The fighting, the bloodshed. Don’t you want that?”

Tommy shakes his head. “Not like this. We can find another way.”

“There is no other way!” Wilbur screams, and the whole cave trembles with the exclamation, rocks with the shrill shout. Tommy startles, jumps back, but Wilbur grabs him by the arms, shaking hands tightening around the boy’s thin arms. He searches the big, blue eyes, hoping to find the boy he knows, the boy with the loud laugh and wide smile, brash and wild, yet loyal and dedicated. 

All he finds is terror. 

He doesn’t understand. Does Tommy not feel the weariness in his bones? Does he not have the scars that never fade, the aches that never stop? How does he soldier on despite them, with the hope that only a child can have, a naivety that should have been squashed long ago? How can he not see that the only way it will ever end is in flames?

He wonders, briefly. Will he be warm again, then, when the world is consumed by fire?

“When everything is gone, then we will be free,” his says, a lilt in his voice.

That is what he had promised them, is it not? Freedom. He will give it to them, then. 

“You’ll kill everyone, Wilbur,” Tommy says. His voice shakes. “Everyone. The good and the bad.”

Wilbur shakes his head. “There is no good and bad. Never was.”

What a blow that had been. It makes him smile now, another one of those sour smiles, that twist his face, almost as if he’s in pain. 

When had he realized it? Was it when Fundy denounced him, destroyed the walls his own father had erected? Was it when Niki lost faith in him, her letters no longer hidden in the tree between Manburg and Pogtopia? Was it when Tubbo, meant to be a spy for him, stopped showing up for reports, started helping Schlatt with Manburg festivities, mockeries of everything Wilbur had accomplished? 

Or had the real blow come when he saw how happy the former citizens of L’Manburg had become, how there was no more conflict, no more infighting, when he realized that maybe L’Manburg, a country he had raised from the dirt, was better off without him and Tommy?

“You think Niki deserves to die? And Fundy?” Tommy asks. “What about Tubbo?”

“I’m saving them,” he says, looks anywhere but Tommy’s eyes. “They’ve been corrupted.”

“What are you saying? Tubbo’s a fucking kid, man. He’s just a kid. None of this is his fault, you know it’s not.”

“Stop, Tommy. Just stop,” Wilbur says, chuckles despite the pain in his chest. “I know what you’re trying to do, it’s not going to work.”

“What am I doing? Saying the truth? What about Fundy? Your own son?”

“He’s a traitor,” Wilbur hisses, sees the face of his son, twisted in disgust. He sees another face, another traitor, and his scowl deepens. “Just like Eret.”

“Well what about Niki then? You love her, don’t you? What has she done to deserve this?”

He can’t think about her, not without the pain of a thousand knives scraping away at his skin, pulling him apart. What had she done to deserve this? She had forgotten him, lost her faith in him, and that was the worst crime he could fathom. He sees her gray face, eyes dull, staring right through him. He can’t breathe with her looking at him like that, like he never existed at all. 

“They’re all ruined!” Wilbur shouts, spittle spraying from his lips. His grip tightens. Maybe in another life he could convince her to believe in him again. Convince them all. He watched them all slip away, can see Tommy slipping away now, and he knows it is too late for any of them.

“Wilbur, you don’t need to do this. No one is too far gone,” Tommy says, desperation clear in his voice. “We kill Schlatt-”

“This was never about Schlatt,” Wilbur interrupts. “It didn’t start with him, and it sure as hell won’t end with him.”

“Wilbur-”

“There will never be peace.  _ Never _ . Not while we’re still around.”

Peace. He remembers the feeling. It was warm. Now he is cold. Always so cold. 

There will never be peace, not while he is still alive, because he cannot allow it. There is no sleep for him, no rest, no time of day where his mind is quiet, where the whispers do not curl in his ear and hum in his head and mock him for his failure. He cannot live while L’Manburg is not his, and now, neither can anyone else. 

Maybe he will finally be able to rest, knowing that L’Manburg is free, set loose by his TNT. 

It hurts him to see the look on Tommy’s face. The horror. He is too young to understand, or maybe just too stubborn, to see that there is no more hope for any of them. They were doomed from the glorious moment they gained their independence, heads held high in the afternoon sun. 

“We all have to die, Tommy,” Wilbur says, and he almost sounds like himself again. It is almost just Wilbur and Tommy again. “That’s the only way we can finish this. Help me. Help your president.”

Tommy stares at him, expression turned unreadable. When had there become parts of Tommy that were hidden from him? 

“You’re not my president,” Tommy says, eyes cold. The words strike a spark in him, a spark that lights a fire in the pit of his stomach. Rage. “You’re not anyone’s president, Wilbur. I don’t know who you are.”

The words ring, they echo and reverberate, long after they are said. The moment splinters into a thousand, slivers of ice raining down on his shoulders. It is so cold. Even the fire blazing within him chills his very bones. It takes over, rising up through his limbs. 

He doesn’t remember making the decision to hit Tommy. All he hears is the crack, the violent pop of skin against skin. Tommy is on the floor, clutching the left side of his face, and Wilbur’s right hand, still shaking, burns. 

“You would be nothing without me, you ungrateful piece of shit,” he says, looming over the wide-eyed boy. “Nothing! I am the reason you have even the smallest bit of power! I gave it to you, and I can take it away.”

His voice is a knife, sharp and cutting and bloodsoaked.

The detonator is heavy in his pocket. 

“I’m making this decision for the betterment of us all,” Wilbur says, reaching for the button that will set him free. “I’m doing this for you.”

When he closes his eyes, he sees L’Manburg. Green hills, blue water, black and yellow walls. He knows there is nothing more beautiful in this world, and there never will be again. 

His friends, his family, smile at him. They know this is for the best. 

Soon, they will all be together again. Soon, it will be warm. 


End file.
